Legal experts urge UN special rapporteur to visit Brazil to report on President’s attacks on Brazilian judiciary.
Brazil’s democracy and the independence of its judiciary are under threat from President Jair Bolsonaro’s government, a group of lawyers and legal experts said in a petition to the United Nations as the country prepares for October’s elections.
The group of 80 lawyers and legal scholars on Wednesday called on the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Diego Garcia-Sayan, to visit Brazil and report on attacks on the Supreme Court and the Supreme Electoral Court, which oversees the elections.
Courts are facing an unprecedented campaign of censure and public threats against judges ruling against the government’s agenda, their petition said.
“Furthermore, Bolsonaro publicly claims, without any evidence, that Brazil’s electoral system can and has been rigged, and has even claimed that the TSE judges are behind such alleged frauds,” the petition to the UN rapporteur reads.
Amid a dip in popularity, Bolsonaro has repeatedly claimed in recent months – without providing any evidence – that Brazil’s e-voting system is vulnerable to fraud.
Critics and judicial experts have dismissed his claims as baseless, accusing Bolsonaro of plotting to use his cheating allegations to contest the election results, much like former US President Donald Trump, whom Bolsonaro has emulated.
Earlier this month, the president said his party would seek an electoral system audit ahead of the election. He has also suggested that the armed forces, whose current and former members are employed across his government, should conduct their own parallel vote count.
On Wednesday, the president’s son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, said Brazil could face political instability if the electoral tribunal failed to provide more transparency about its electoral system.
Meanwhile, Wednesday’s petition said Bolsonaro made a series of direct threats to the Supreme Court in a speech to thousands of supporters last September.
“The Brazilian judiciary is under siege. The independence of the judiciary in Brazil faces challenges unprecedented since democratization in the 1980s,” the letter reads.
Bolsonaro faces a tough challenge over his re-election bid from former left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who recently launched his presidential campaign and has a clear lead over Bolsonaro, according to recent polls.